Measure of Time
by c1araoswa1d
Summary: The Doctor returns to Clara with something unexpected.


Whenever the Doctor was absent for more than a day, it felt like forever. Clara could feel her mind trying to tune out the noise of her television and the scratching of her pen across the paper – trying to hear the sound of the Tardis merging into her space and her time to deposit her Doctor into her living room. He'd gone off on Sunday evening with a sparkle in his eyes and a promise to return the very next day with a surprise for her. It had been three days since then.

Far _more_ than forever.

Her pen fell lightly atop a student's report. There were too many red marks through the words there, enough to tangle her thoughts away from the sound she desperately wanted to hear. The sound that rang angrily just as she landed her face into her cupped hands to shout away the stress of pupils who never listened. So she heard the door creak open first and it startled her to a stand, hands immediately clenched and then opened to shake away the numbness of writing for too long.

"Doctor?" She called.

"What a day, Clara," he shouted back in response.

He muttered something and she heard her couch whine under his weight as she closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief, letting her lips break into an easy smile because she knew he was safe. Safe and under her protection once again – the way it should be. Stepping away from a bed covered in reports and a stack of quizzes she'd been avoiding, Clara plucked up her glass of red wine and casually made her way towards him, a secondary wave of calm washing over her as the blue box came into sight.

His hair seemed ruffled, just a bit more disheveled than it had been the last time she saw him. Giggling lightly, she imagined he'd had one hell of an adventure, and she grew instantly jealous because he'd had it without her. Of course, she knew she wasn't ready for the alternative. Clara Oswald wasn't ready to pack herself into that endless Tardis for a never-ending adventure.

Partly, she knew, because for her it would end.

"Three days," she uttered as she moved into the room, smiling as he bent forward to push himself to stand, the effort – she could tell – far more than it should have been. The thought put a warble in her voice as she continued, "Doctor, you promised me..."

He turned

"Oh," Clara finished, brow rising, feet faltering.

" _Oh_?" The Doctor repeated with a tilt of his head. He smiled as he stated, "I promised you _Oh_?"

Cheeks going red, Clara corrected, "You promised me tomorrow."

His hands came out and he shrugged, "It is tomorrow."

"For you, perhaps – although I _highly_ doubt it is – but for me it's been three days."

Sighing, he relaxed to state, "An eternity."

"You've," she started quietly, nodding her head as she pointed, "You've forgotten to shave."

The Doctor's eyes went wide as he questioned, "Have I?" before his hands came up to brush over the beard Clara judged to be at least two weeks old. Clara watched him laugh and she took a long drink of her wine before settling her glass down on the small table beside the couch. She gestured up at him, but kept a healthy distance because she was tempted to stroke her hands over it, to see if it felt as full as it looked.

"Oh my," she mumbled to herself, chin dropping to turn her gaze to something else, choosing to examine the tears in his trousers as she exclaimed, "Doctor, what happened?"

She could see his hand flap through the air, could hear the slight huff of air just before he offered, "Oh that was nothing. Always a few scrapes along the way when you're saving endangered civilizations – you know that, Clara."

And she realized she'd moved closer to him as she met his eyes and watched his lips spread into a warm grin just underneath the mustache that hung neatly there now. "You could have come for me; I could have helped you."

"Heavens no – you'd have grown far worse than a foolish beard," he teased.

"It's," Clara began softly, biting her bottom lip and then finishing, "Rather distinguished."

The Doctor chuckled, "You like the beard?" He half turned and swung back, "And here I thought you'd be threatening me with death and taking clippers to my face, arguing about it being _unsanitary_ , or _unsightly_."

"Unsightly," she said.

Clara had always thought him somewhat handsome. Those eyes that always held that twinge of sadness amongst the stars in them; those hands that always twirled about as though encouraging her excitement; those rare smiles always hidden away like a treasure for her to find... But something about this beard, she thought with a long exhale. It gave him a ruggedness he'd never had before. It gave him an added air of mystery to his already mystifying persona, but that wasn't it. There was something else nudging at the edge of her mind.

It had taken at least two weeks to grow.

A time that could have taken her tomorrow.

"Clara, are you alright? Your eyes have gone all saucer-like again and I believe your sight's travelled through time," he argued, bent now so close she could feel his breath on her chin.

He smelled of dirt and a smidge of grass. Clara could see the stains now on him in the dim light of her living room. She could see small splatterings of blood on the cuffs of his sleeves, no doubt from trying to rescue an unrescuable soul. And there was a tension to the way he was standing, as though his muscles ached to do so and she knew that was why he had immediately sat upon her couch, resting his legs after whatever ordeal he'd been through. The scruff on his face was a measure of time wherein he'd been alone; it was a window of time from which he might not have returned

Clara reached up to cup his face within her palms, smiling at the shock that widened his eyes and froze his stance as her thumbs slid slowly over the edges of his mustache and into his beard. Her fingers dug into the slightly coarse hair and she leaned forward, taking another step into him to rest her forehead against his, touching her nose to his as he breathed warm against her lips. She chanced to peck a kiss to his, the tickle of his new facial hair watering her eyes knowing he was standing before her in confusion.

She sighed, "Three days, Doctor."

Nodding against her, he finally understood beyond her initial fascination and – he knew – possible primal desire, sat the comprehension of potential loss through a few inches of hair. Clara never liked him to be gone more than a day and so he promised her every tomorrow, both knowing full well he lied, except she'd pretended not to notice until only a few minutes ago, when she could clearly see the passage of time grown onto his face.

"More than one day is too long."

And he replied softly, "An eternity."


End file.
